[NEW FEATURE] How to be heard with Facebook Ads?

Do you sometimes feel like you’re spending hundreds of dollars on Facebook Ads, without ever being heard or noticed?

It’s like your message is being thrown into a black void.

You’re not alone in this. Advertisers all over the world feel like that too.

Facebook Advertising Marketplace became extremely crowded over the last couple of months. And it’s still growing. People are FIGHTING for the attention of their target audience. And Facebook is fighting to solve the problem of underexposure.

Auction buying vs. Reach and Frequency

If you’re typically using Facebook’s recommended practices when it comes to advertising, you’re most likely auctioning for your ad buying.

That means you’re competing for attention with every advertiser targeting the same audience.

Using this kind of approach is standard and definitely recommended by Facebook and a lot of Facebook Advertising experts, including me.

Competing might be tricky for you and won’t get the job done. It’s unpredictable, especially around big holidays or launches other companies are having.

In that case, it’s better to use this new feature Facebook just launched.

(Note: The feature is being rolled out gradually.)

Introducing - Predictable Reach and Frequency

A couple of days ago I came across this feature in my Facebook Ads Manager:

As the description clearly says, using Predictable Reach and Frequency on Facebook will help you achieve a fixed CPM when you reserve your audience in advance.

This means you’ll know exactly how many times your ad will get shown to how many people for what price.

You’re not bidding against thousands of other companies competing for the same target audience.

You’re now RESERVING that audience.

Below the budget and schedule, you can choose between different options for reach and frequency balance

Balanced(Recommended)- Show ads no more than 2 times ever 7 days

Higher Reach - Show ads no more than 1 time every 7 days

Higher Frequency - Show ads no more than 7 times every 7 days

Custom - Set your own Reach/Frequency

Such as with everything on Facebook, different options fit different scenarios.

If you want to gradually increase your presence to a larger and broader audience, you will optimize for Higher Reach.

But if you’re planning a big launch and want to be present in users’ News Feed pretty much throughout the day, you would definitely go with Higher Frequency.

The good about Predictable Reach and Frequency

As mentioned previously, you now have an advantage over advertisers that are buying ads for the same target audience. You reserved your audience, and Facebook will make sure you’ll reach them properly.

I’ve been working on a couple of massive launches that were carefully and strategically planned, but we sometimes stumbled upon issues that come with bidding. No matter what we did, we couldn’t reach our target audience in a way that would be ideal for our situation.

Sometimes we felt like we were left out. And this will solve our problem perfectly.

The bad about Predictable Reach and Frequency

Because you are reserving your target audience, the cost of reaching them is naturally going to be higher than buying ads in the auction. This is entirely normal and the cost you should be willing to pay if you want to assure your spot in front of your audience.

That said, if you’re not a multimillion-dollar business whose investments in Facebook Ads are higher than average, it might not be even possible for you to use this feature.

Predictable Reach and Frequency demand using an audience of at least 200,000 people. And that requires a budget of $5,800.

If you’re not yet at the point where investments like that would make sense for your business, you’re going to have to use the traditional auction buying. Which does not mean that your ads won’t be successful, you’ll just have to find different ways to reach your target audience.

Do you have it?

Let me know in the comments below — have you seen or used this feature below? I’d like to hear from you!